


yeah, i can't forget even if i tried

by sarah_x



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Adults, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Pining, Role Reversal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 15:49:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20641706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarah_x/pseuds/sarah_x
Summary: While on tour, Richie skips out of his hotel room and goes for a drive. He ends up at a  rundown bar where a familiar face is playing to an ungrateful audience.(Self indulgent AU where Eddie becomes a struggling Americana singer and Richie loves him again all at once).





	yeah, i can't forget even if i tried

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Neko Case’s Calling Cards:
> 
> “Every dial tone, every truck stop, every heartbreak  
I love you more  
Looking like you just woke up from making songs,  
Shooting satellites that blew up the pay phones...  
Singing we'll all be together,  
Even when we're not together  
With our arms around each other,  
With our faith still in each other  
I've got calling cards  
From 20 years ago.”
> 
> I seriously recommend Neko Case not just for this fic but just because she's fantastic and underrated anyway. Also, here's a short reddie playlist with some of her songs among others if you want to suffer: open.spotify.com/playlist/2sd2KieG6BJsfrYDoWwRUr

“Just promise me you’ll be back before the gig tomorrow?”

Richie’s agent, Jon, was a nervous man. It was what Richie liked about him most of the time, he worried so much it kept Richie in line. They were never late to any interviews or events with Jon scheduling them to get there an hour early. Even if it did make him a pain in the ass sometimes. 

“Alright, alright,” Richie took one hand off the wheel to give a dismissive wave, even if Jon couldn’t see it. “No promise I’ll be back in one piece, though.” 

“Rich-”

“Siri, end call.” 

Richie let out a sigh of relief. He leaned back in the driver’s seat and punched the accelerator. He went hurtling off down the dimly lit dirt road with little concern for any other drivers. It was the middle of jackass nowhere anyway. 

He didn’t know where he was going and not just metaphorically speaking. It felt like a thousand miles between each streetlight and the signs disappeared from his headlights’ shine too quickly to read them. He didn’t sweat it too much. He liked going fast, feeling his seat vibrating as the car struggled to cope with the sudden acceleration. 

His phone rang again, not twenty minutes later.

It was Mike. 

The phone flagged it up as an unrecognized Maine number but he knew it had to be Mike. He was the only one still left in Derry - hell, still left in Maine - that knew him and knew how to get his number.

Richie’s heart pounded so hard it was painful. There was nothing to be scared of. It was just Mike. So why did his world feel like it was narrowing to a pinprick and why was he suddenly so afraid?

He was so busy staring at his phone screen that he didn’t notice the other driver hurtling down the road towards him. Huge headlights blinded into his car, followed by the blaring horn of a sixteen-wheeler. 

“Shit!” 

Richie screamed and yanked the wheel in a hard left turn. He narrowly avoided becoming toothpaste but the car couldn’t handle the sudden change in direction. It went hurtling off the side of the road, flipping once, twice, as all the windows shattered inward. Richie closed his eyes against the flying glass shards and went on screaming.

The car landed upright, roof caved-in and windowless. Richie’s hands remained on the wheel in a white-knuckled death grip. 

“Holy shit.” He whispered to himself, breathing hard. 

He grinned. 

“Holy shit!” He started to laugh, almost hysterically. “I’m alive! I’m fucking alive!” 

His car was wrecked and his head throbbed but he was alive. Richie reached for his phone with trembling hands, only to find it smashed up like the car, snapped nearly in two.

Richie groaned and closed his eyes, letting his head rest against his seat.

Then he started to smell gasoline and decided to get the hell out of the car. 

He stumbled back up the hill to the road, almost skidding in the dirt. The world was still fuzzy and everything, even his steps, sounded like they were echoing from underwater. His legs felt heavy and shaky at the same time. 

He glared off in the direction the truck had disappeared. 

“Could have at least stopped, asshole.” 

Another car appeared a few seconds later and Richie started shouting, “Hey! Hey!” but it peeled away from him without giving any indication the driver had ever seen him. 

Richie let his arms hang limply around his waist, defeated.

It was becoming abundantly clear that he had little options but to walk and maybe hope to flag down someone who could help. Find a car or a building. Find a phone. Call… someone. Jon, probably, even if his agent would chew him out for it like a mom would after getting a phone call from the jailhouse at four in the morning. 

He tried not to think about Mike’s call. Every time he did, that overwhelming fear would rush back. 

So he walked.

*

It was around half a mile before he saw a sign for a local bar, the kind for truckers and bikers if “Big Bill and Bobbi’s Bar” was anything to go by, but beggars could not be choosers.

He had to walk another two miles to Bill and Bobbi’s and, by the time he got there, he was just about ready to collapse. His head spun as he stumbled up the steps into the bar and he had to catch himself on the railing, eliciting some grins and chuckles from some of the burly men outside.

“One too many, buddy?” asked one of them, apparently not noticing the blood, or not caring. 

There was a jarring difference between the soft lighting of the bar and quaint paintings on the walls compared to the patrons, either bikers or truckers or country boys, complete with cowboy boots and hats. Richie snickered to himself. 

Richie pitched towards the bar, elbowing a blonde woman out of the way. “You got a phone?” 

The bartender eyed him, “Maybe we do, maybe we don’t.” 

Richie sighed and took his wallet out of his pocket, thankful it hadn’t been lost in the crash. He placed a twenty down on the bar. 

“Look, just get me a beer. And a cellphone.” 

The bartender sighed and took the twenty from him.

“Trader Joe’s the cheapest.”

“Fine, whatever.” 

The bartender disappeared to fix his drink while the lady who he’d pushed out the way gave him a withering look. Richie climbed onto the stool and leaned on the bar by his elbows, rubbing at his head. It felt like everyone was looking at him and, despite all his prowess on the stage, he didn’t like it. 

There was some kind of joke there: the former bullied kid (now washed-up adult) walks into a bar full of the kind of men who used to push him into lockers. Thing was the joke wasn’t so funny when it was aimed at him.

Then he heard a voice he’d never expected to hear in a place like this. A voice he thought he might never hear again, for better or worse. 

“Uh - hello, everyone.” 

Richie's eyes darted across the bar to a small stage area tucked towards the back. “My name’s Eddie Kaspbrak,” Eddie said. A huge guitar hung off his thin shoulders and he was busy re-adjusting the microphone, his scrambling movements echoing badly through the speakers. “Just - uh - give me a sec. Almost there.” 

Richie glanced around the rest of the bar, wondering if this was actually real or whether he’d finally lost it. A few people seemed to notice Eddie, which was a good sign, but mostly they ignored him or looked apathetic at best.

“Okay, got it,” He said, settling down on a stool in front of the microphone. “Hi everyone. Again. Really happy to be here tonight.”

Somewhere to the left of the stage, a woman began to howl with laughter. Eddie smiled awkwardly.

“Anyway, I just want to tell you a bit about the song before I start.” 

The blonde woman next to Richie muttered, “Loser.” 

“So, I grew up in this small town in Maine,” Eddie said. “I know, I know. There are a million songs about people growing up in small towns and being desperate to leave. I’ve written a few of them myself. But this is, uh, well it’s actually about these friends I had when I was a kid. I knew most of them all my life but then this one summer everything just came together and we… well, we bonded like crazy. Especially me and my best friend, he is… he was really special to me. It’s going back a long time now and it’s kind of hazy sometimes but - anyway, I hope you enjoy the song. Here goes nothing.” 

Eddie started strumming the guitar. The tune was fast but sad, somehow. Like an angry love letter.

Then Eddie was singing and Richie felt light-headed for an entirely different reason. 

Eddie had always had a nice singing voice. Richie had teased him for it, said it was annoying. And it had been, especially with Richie’s ADHD, it had been a nightmare to be around him when Richie was trying to read his comics or throw Stan off at D&D. But annoying did not mean it was bad. Far from it, he had a nice voice. Good for birthday parties and lullabies for babies and humming to Richie when they lay under the stars together. 

This was next level, though. Eddie reminded him of an old Blues musician. All he needed was a suit and a hat that hid his face. 

“ _ I’ve always been running away from something _ ,” Eddie sang, “ _ One place to another, I keep on running. Across mountains and creeks and rivers, every road, every truckstop, every letter leads back to you. Yeah, I can’t forget you. Yeah, I can’t forget even if I tried _ .”

The bartender came back with his drink and offered him a phone. Richie shushed the disgruntled bartender, waving away the phone. 

Richie moved closer to the stage, leaving his beer abandoned on the bar.

“ _ You’re a fox in the night, I’m a ghost on the wind, _ ” Eddie continued. “ _ Wish I could be brave, stand up, be loud. You always had the right words. Always had the right eyes, the right smile. Yeah, I can’t forget you. Yeah, I can’t forget even if I tried. _ ”

For a moment, Richie wondered if he really had died in the crash and that this was heaven. Listening to his best friend sing to him. Remembering Eddie as he had known him then, on a lazy, quiet summer’s day, rocking in their hammock and humming to himself. Admiring his cast, the bold, red ‘V’ burned into Richie’s mind forever.

Eddie was about to launch into the second verse for the uninterested audience when he looked up and saw Richie.

“ _ We’ve been  _ \- wait,  _ Richie? _ ” 

Richie turned and ran.

“Sorry, everyone,” Eddie hurried to say, removing his guitar. “Emergency bathroom break.” 

The bar patrons didn’t seem to care about the sudden disruption.

Richie ran out onto the bar’s porch and puked over the railing. 

Eddie followed him through the swinging door, almost getting hit in the face by it.

“Richie? It’s you, isn’t it?” Eddie said, walking over to him. Eddie rubbed his back and took his hand, helping him right himself. Even after all these years, his touch felt so natural. “You look…” 

“Like shit?” Richie finished for him, adjusting his glasses. “Wrecking your car will do that to you.”

“Wait,  _ what? _ ” Eddie's face cycled through various expressions before settling on wide-eyed shock, “ _ When? _ ” 

“Just now,” Richie shrugged, “I almost looked like James Dean’s charred corpse for a hot second there.” 

“You wish you looked like James Dean.” 

“Not his charred corpse, I don’t.” 

“ _ Rich. _ ”

“ _ Eds. _ ” 

They glared at each other before Eddie sighed. 

“Jesus Christ, Rich,” Eddie shook his head. “What’s wrong with you?” 

“You got all night?” 

Eddie continued to shake his head, grabbing Richie by the jacket sleeve and maneuvering him to a nearby table. “Just sit down while I call an ambulance. What even happened, anyway? You didn’t-?”

“What, drink my bodyweight in Budweiser and plow into a car full of children?” 

Eddie scowled at him, “That’s not funny.” 

“The cop I tied up and left in my trunk said the same thing.” 

Eddie ignored him as he phoned for an ambulance. Richie watched him out the corner of his eye, saw how Eddie’s hand was shaking around the phone. Probably just stage fright. Still, that impulse was there, to reach out and take Eddie’s hand in his own. After twenty long years of no contact, Richie doubted Eddie would want that.

They fell into an uneasy silence, staring out at the barren parking lot that amounted to a worn patch of dirt on the side of the road. The stars stretched out above them and Richie wondered if they were the same stars and sky they used to fall asleep under all those years ago. 

“You know, for a second there,” Eddie said, sad smile playing on his lips. “I thought you’d actually come to see me play.” 

Richie frowned. That one hurt. “You know, I kept meaning to catch up with you sometime it’s just-” Richie stopped himself and tried again. “-I liked your song, if that’s worth anything.”

Eddie nodded and looked into his eyes, waiting for Richie to break and make fun of him. It never came. Richie let his hand inch closer but it didn’t quite make it to Eddie’s knee or his arm or his hand, so he gripped the armrest of Eddie’s chair instead.

“Yeah,” Eddie smiled. “It’s worth something.” 

Richie returned the smile, feeling a sense of relief wash over him. Nothing had changed. He was still the same old Eddie. They were still themselves.

Richie said quietly, “I missed you.” 

Eddie grinned wider, punching him lightly on the arm. “Jeez, you must have brain damage.” 

“Only in your dreams,” Richie shot back. “Which I am definitely naked in.” 

“That one doesn’t even make sense,” Eddie rolled his eyes. “Anything so you can have the last word, huh?” 

Eddie placed a hand on Richie shoulder and he felt the weight of it, on his arm, and the weight of them, hanging in the space between them. 

Twenty seven years later and he was still desperately in love with this man.


End file.
